It's a cliche that the world is shrinking. As Gene Santoro sees it in his second collection of essays, music is one arena where that cliche takes on a real, but paradoxical, life: while music crisscrosses the globe with ever greater speed, musicians seize what's useful, and expand their idioms more rapidly. More and more since the 1960s, musicians, both in America and abroad, have shown an uncanny but consistent ability to draw inspiration from quite unexpected sources. We think of Paul Simon in Graceland, blending Afropop rhythms and Everly Brothers harmonies into a remarkable new sound...
It's a cliche that the world is shrinking. As Gene Santoro sees it in his second collection of essays, music is one arena where that cliche takes on a...
As music columnist for The Nation, Gene Santoro has established himself as an important new critical voice, able to write well on a broad spectrum of popular music and jazz without losing touch with the cutting edge of today's music scene. About Nat "King" Cole, Santoro comments: "adjectives can't describe the swinging, ingratiating self-confidence laced with tenderness that colors Nat "King" Cole's singing. His baritone/tenor is so airy and elemental, so palpably physical, it invites you in, then surrounds you glowingly..." And on the highly successful rock band Living Colour, Santoro is no...
As music columnist for The Nation, Gene Santoro has established himself as an important new critical voice, able to write well on a broad spectrum of ...
Charles Mingus was one of the most innovative jazz musicians of the 20th century, and ranks with Charles Ives and Duke Ellington as one of America's greatest composers. By temperament, he was a high-strung and sensitive romantic, a towering figure whose tempestuous personal life found powerfully coherent expression in the ever-shifting textures of his music. Now, acclaimed music critic Gene Santoro strips away the myths shrouding "Jazz's Angry Man," revealing Mingus as more complex than even his close friends knew. Written in a lively, novelistic style, Myself When I Am Real draws on dozens...
Charles Mingus was one of the most innovative jazz musicians of the 20th century, and ranks with Charles Ives and Duke Ellington as one of America's g...
What do Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Tom Waits, Cassandra Wilson, and Ani DiFranco have in common? In Highway 61 Revisited, acclaimed music critic Gene Santoro says the answer is jazz--not just the musical style, but jazz's distinctive ambiance and attitudes. As legendary bebop rebel Charlie Parker once put it, "If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn." Unwinding that Zen-like statement, Santoro traces how jazz's existential art has infused outstanding musicians in nearly every wing of American popular music--blues, folk, gospel, psychedelic rock,...
What do Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Tom Waits, Cassandra Wilson, and Ani DiFranco have in common? In Highway 61 Revisited,...
